Instead
by AyaplusBeat
Summary: Moments like these are hard to compare, but she'd rather be married to him instead.


_I'm sure everyone's wondering why I'm doing one-shots instead of updating my other stories. Welp, I'm working on this project called a Big Bang for Mass Effect this year and it's taking up most of my time. These drabbles and one-shots are when I'm having writers block to help me cool down if you will. So thank you all for bearing with me :3_

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**"Marry me, he said, through his rotten teeth, bad breath, and then**  
**Marry me instead of that strapping young goatherd, but when-"  
Marry Me ~ Emilie Autumn**

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Betrothals happened yes; however, the necessity of forced arrangements was far and few in the world of industry. Yet should there be a world where Korra'd become a married woman in the terms of greater good, it would be to foulest of men. His teeth shall be white and clean, he'll dress sharply, most of all he'd be just as kind as he was cruel, aged like fine wine.

Fine wine comes with a price. There is no more Mako, no more hopes of saving the world through sheer force of will. It's diplomacy and patience. Should there be another world, Korra shall travel the world under a careful eye better than Tenzin or her own mothers, wearing such foolishly pretty things after heavy thought.

Air bending would come slow, a new found enjoyment for watching the sunrise overcoming her, and she could stare at her husband in frustration. In him was kindness, and understanding, with high taste and a dark past riddling him.

Their marriage bed was a terrifying place in months to come as a newly wed, she came upon the invention of a deep cut on her thigh to fool him she had a weak cycle of sickness but terrifying yet was how he knew better than that. He waited and waited, it became a game of cat and mouse.

Eventually she enjoyed it, complaining of his hair night and day instead because sadly she felt an infatuation with the length .

Barely two weeks in, she let her celibate self wander to him half nude in order to dishevel it , pouring the dark brown tresses all across his face and down his chest. "Ah,— I like it this way. You know that." She huffed, almost embarrassed . Tentatively he accepted in an odd manner, all the while restraining himself. For the first time, she'd have none of it, pushing him onto the bed in her own shy way.

It was the first night still, if such circumstances occurred, she felt a vicious bitterness between the moans and sighs escaping through her mouth in half lidded sight.

The bitterness grew like all bitterness does, the distaste of his father, this distance from her old companions—now the lacking tartness of her speech when she said I love you. He'd say it back in a sigh, sweet enough to blend with some of the extravagant teas he had time to find, making her force it down her own throat for the benefit of her health.

How lucky was she, prized and idolatrized that yes, no more Mako but plenty of his distant glances slowly becoming unimportant. In another version, she'd sooner be dead, slitting her thigh in attempts to take Mako secretly, becoming lovers.

She'd rather be dead, falling somewhere unfathomable, unable to think such a thing. Perhaps he didn't feel the same due sweetness being his forte, pampering her safely. It wasn't her nature to stay hushed about things as these, yet here she stayed, starring off in her sorrow till he came to hold her close in a dream she tempted herself to believe—even just for that sparse moment.

Perhaps, if he lived long enough—and he would ,he'd find someone younger. He'd replace her with their children left behind to hold his name. She fiddled with his loose hair at night, the fight long won so at least in this way she could smell it, embracing it to her chest in the vulnerable pangs of hurt.

Avatar's can die early like any good person, she reasoned that's how she'd go. Bright and early, in summer because she hated it, and she hated him. At least he married her; would that too fade from his mind?

The delusion was impossible to bare when he looked back intently as she, she almost did it. She almost asked him if he meant it, walking out to the gazebo during mid-afternoon. His hair blew in the wind, tussled out and in his hand a gift. Always gifts.

Somehow his actions mimicked the opposite of her fears, he loved her too. So why did she wish she was…

"Marry me," She laughed, cringing.

He retorted merrily, "We're already married."

"Then marry me again." She'd dress up this time, really dress up. Taking pins to her hair, she'd wear lipstick and rouge and all sorts of silly things she threw a fit over the first time. He was more kind than cruel, better tasting wine than any spirit available, she was going to let him spoil her till the fated day she did die remorsefully, blaming him for it all. "Fancy, stupidly so in that way you talk to your fellow councilmen. Tell them, Oh I'm marrying the Avatar again, can you mirror that?"

In a whole other universe, she could be content that it was Tarrlok whom found some strange logic in a betrothal between them. "Alright, marry me," He said in the way she wouldn't have stated differently.

Mako might have asked the same, would they have been given opportunity , the strapping young fire bender. Tarrlok stole her away from the bickering and temper she needn't share, rearranging anger with despair , fixing her hair and tucking out her sleeves in his fits of tidiness.

It was him she wanted to be married to instead.


End file.
